Is it better for the Church to be an established cultural presence or a creative minority?

I heard Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna give a talk in London recently. It was part of a promotional event for the International Theological Institute, an English-speaking centre of theology in Austria. See their website here.

He was speaking about the role of the Church in a Western culture that is increasingly secularised. He was somehow pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. I didn’t take detailed notes, so some of this might have my gloss on it.

The pessimism went like this, and he acknowledged that he was simply repeating themes elaborated by Pope-Emeritus Benedict over many years: There is no doubt that the cultural landscape in the West has become more secularised over the past fifty years or so. The Church seems to have less influence as a cultural and political force; and it has lost or is in the process of losing the big moral battles of the last two generations (abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, traditional marriage, etc).

On top of this, the Church itself has in many ways become more secularised. The ethos of many Christians (their attitudes and behaviour) is often not dissimilar from the ethos of the secular world around them. So the Church is both marginalised for being at odds with the culture, and ignored for having nothing significant to offer to the culture; it is both counter-cultural (in a way that is incomprehensible to most people), and yet too influenced by the culture to give a distinctive voice.

The optimism came as a result of the pessimism. Because the Church, in this analysis, has more or less failed in the mighty cultural struggles of the last fifty years, this failure gives it a new freedom to stop worrying about how influential it is on society and concentrate on just being itself and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Instead of trying to win a political argument, and putting all its energy and anxiety into resisting political and cultural change, it can choose to witness to the truth of Christian values on their own terms.

It’s as if we have been gripping the wheel too tightly, judging our worth by the measure of how effective our campaigns have been in particular ethical issues, of how many people we have managed to convince to change their views. Perhaps this is all misguided. Perhaps we should concentrate on purifying ourselves, and the witness we are giving, and leave the results to God. If the Church becomes less concerned about convincing the secular world, and at the same time less worldly herself, she will actually have more to offer the world in an authentic way.

Cardinal Schönborn quoted St Bernadette of Lourdes, when she was interrogated by the clergy and police after her visions, and one of them said to her, ‘You are not convincing us’. And she replied, ‘My job is not to convince you, but just to tell you’. It’s like Peter and John speaking to the elders of Jerusalem in Acts 4: ‘Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard’.

I’m not 100% sure about all this! Yes, Christians need to have the confidence to witness to their faith, without over-worrying about how this witness is being received. Yes, the Church needs to be purified, converted, and each individual Christian needs to become less worldly and more focussed on Christ and his teaching. Yes, if we fail to convince or even challenge the culture, we shouldn’t give up. This is all true, and makes sense to Catholics who are confident in their faith, and have the support of a strong Christian community.

But there are other concerns too. When the Church loses its influence in society, this effects in a negative way especially the many ordinary Catholics whose faith is perhaps less strong, who don’t yet have the inner spiritual resources to self-identify as a confident and creative minority: those on the edges; the lapsed; those without the energy or time to engage in questions about Catholic identity. When the Church is no longer a strong cultural presence, and when Christian institutions are not nurturing the faith of ordinary people in quiet but significant ways, then the moral and spiritual lives of many people suffer.

And I’m also concerned about this apparent failure to engage constructively with the culture. If we do have something to say, shouldn’t it make sense to at least some people? And if it isn’t making sense, shouldn’t we find better ways of saying what needs saying? It’s about the continuing importance of dialogue and cultural engagement.

To be fair to Cardinal Schönborn, he was not suggesting that we should give up on dialogue and retreat into a self-justifying mode of ‘witness’. Quite the opposite. He explicitly said that the Church should step out more freely to engage with the world, with a new confidence. That was his point. If we worry less about results and influence, if we are less afraid of being a misunderstood minority, we can be more truly ourselves, more faithful to the gospel, more creative, more engaged, and more interesting to those who are genuinely searching for an alternative to the worldliness around then.

I agree. Catholics sometimes need to be counter-cultural, in a joyful and confident way; as long as we remember that we are part of the culture as well, and we need to use as effectively as possible all the opportunities that we have to influence that culture, opportunities that come to us precisely because we do still belong to it in so many ways. Let’s not use the category of ‘witness’ as an excuse to opt-out or as a defence if our appeal to reason seems incomprehensible. We need to continue in the struggle to make the Christian message comprehensible – which it is.

It was interesting that the very last comment from the floor was about the fall of communism. It wasn’t really a question, just a statement that we should really be more optimistic, because the greatest threat to faith in God and Christian freedom of the last century has actually been overcome: communism. We forget, said the member of the audience, what a terrifying foe this was in Europe and throughout the world, how much harm it did to the Church and to Christian culture, and how much worse things could have become. And yet it did not prevail, in part because of the struggles of Christian men and women.

Cardinal Schönborn agreed, and thanked this person for ending on a note of hope. As if to say: yes, let’s be a creative minority on the ‘outside’ of the secular culture, but let’s not give up on using the influence we still have through our historical Christian presence and trying to transform the culture from within. Which is exactly what Pope-Emeritus Benedict said in his speech at Westminster Hall.

12 Responses

As a convert of some thirty years, I have seen this shift continue. However, the Church still maintains its role as an authority regarding morals and ethical issues in this changing world. I have, you could say, known no different and I fully expect (and hope) that in our ever-changing world, the church will continue in this role.

The final comment about communism is a telling one. Compare this with Rowan Williams’s comments. There is much hope in Pope Francis’s approach which may have more appeal than Pope Benedict who is a brilliant academic but maybe the secular world needs a simpler clearer message and actions always speak louder than words!

I believe that the Church must become introspective for the foreseeable future, so as to put its house in order. “By their works will you know them.” Well, look at the Catholic works the world has seen of late. Some of them have been satanic. The Evil One is running riot in the Church. The only remedy is to concentrate on our own behaviour and try to give Christian witness through example, not by preaching and judging others. The process is likely to take several generations.

Thank you Fr Stephan for taking the time to write this thought provoking article.
Reading it, several themes occurred to me.
One theme was the concept of the use we make of dichotomies as models for our thoughts and how sometimes there is a risk of confusing a model of thought, or a method of organising our thoughts, with reality, or other equally valid models of constructing understating’s of reality.
There is a perceived dichotomy between secular and spiritual, between witness and action and even between pessimism and optimism. These are all constructs of thought, which order our thinking and hopefully aid understandings. They are however constructs and can also create further constructs which we should not in my view be confused with reality. Our understating of what is real will change with our growth and faith together with the development of understanding of knowledge. These are invaluable to our concept of what is “real”. We live in a world were working hypotheses are seen as reality and conflict ensues concerning convincing others to share personal or culturally constructed perceptions of reality. Faith within this construct becomes very important together with identifying the most essential or primary aspects of one’s faith. From this faith ways of being and doing in the world will emerge, however these ways of “doing” need always to be linked with ways of “being”. “Being” and “doing” are not sides of a dichotomy, or even in complementary balance, rather they are integrated and mutually dependent.
My understanding of the power the Catholic church is that it has the opportunity and the experience of supporting ways of “Being” and that out of this emerges ways of “doing” which then influences one’s way of “ Being” and so on. (In the New Testament the analogy of a tree bearing fruit is given to explain this point). Constructing a dichotomy between secular and the spiritual may not be as useful as we think and can lead to judging the effectiveness of the Church using concepts that are not as useful as we may imagine. Pragmatic actions in the world can have a spiritual component and the acceptance or not of these actions or recommendations for actions do not have a bearing on the significance or value of this spiritual component.
The opportunity for the Catholic Church is to nurture the development of a spiritual conciseness and facilitate pragmatic action arising out of this conciseness. The secularisation of the church has the risk that spirituality will be secularised. The huge mistakes the Catholic Church has made in its administration through the centuries may lead to doubt about the administration of the church but not necessarily about the spiritual foundations informing the church as whole. It would be incorrect in my view to refute the basic spiritual foundations of the Church because its administrators consistantly failed to protect children from abuse or that strategies were devised with the aim of protecting the church from ill repute. So too would it be incorrect to judge the effectiveness of the Church by its secular influence on public policy.
The second theme but linked to the first is the idea suggested in the article is that there is a difference between bearing witness and having influence or taking action. Bearing witness is influential and leads to action. Gandhi, among many, firmly believed that the objective is inherent in the means of achieving it. That there is a congruency between the goal itself and the method of achieving it. This is directly in opposition to the predominate cultural prospective of “ the end justifying the means” such a prospective justifies western powers dropping bombs on Baghdad or Belgrade and killing children and others in order to preserve a concept of democracy or justified by “ the greatest good” argument. The Idea that taking this difficult action now will save lives later or put more bluntly killing these children now will prevent more children killed in the future. Bearing witness to how spiritually corrupting this is may not have had an immediate consequence but would eventually have produced results. Imagine if our Cardinals, Priests and all of us had borne witness to the belief that it is absolutely abhorrent to drop bombs on children. To be clear that the end does not justify the means and that if we take this action we will lose something of ourselves. Bearing witness in this way is dynamic; it is an action and may not achieve immediate results but will alter our culture.
Bearing witness to alter conciseness and thereby alter actions is surly better than using secular or political influence to alter actions. The Church here can be an instrumental influence, not by wielding secular power but by acting as a supportive community of faith. Not by dictating rules to each other but by mutually supporting faith and spirituality.

The third theme emerging out of the article, for me, was the difficulty I have with the seemingly predominate view that communism is destructive to faith and the Church and that western capitalism is not, and that the demise of much of communism in the world is a reason the church should be optimistic. There is much evidence that religious practices suffered profound and sustained attack under various communist administrations. Today the Chinese attempt direct control of the Catholic Church to the extent that it may perhaps not be recognised as Catholic. These oppositions to various faiths were explicit and the doctrine informing this opposition well known and available, (and made more powerful because they are well founded if the if different churches and faiths are understood in relation to their function to capital) Most religions survive outright opposition
The less explicate attack on various faiths posed by western capitalist administrations is far more dangerous. This attack is viral in nature and does not have strategy, leaders or plans; it is no less dangerous because of this. Capitalism with its paradigms of thought has crept, largely unchallenged, into the very heart of our faith institutions. A surreptitious attack from within which is leaderless is far more dangerous. Where one is both the victim and the perpetrator is far harder to combat. St Francis and Franciscans have had this battle for centuries as have other religious communities. Such communities have also in the past faced disapproval from the Church.
We live in a wold were the movement and ownership of capital creates and reinforces inequalities and access to resource. Such restricted resources lead to suffering and death. The structure of capitalism is not blamed for this but rather the individual or their government representatives are. We live in a world where there is enough food for everybody to be fed but still people starve.
From a Christian point of view we are all God’s children, a brother or sister in Christ remains a brother or sister irrespective of whether either one of us believes in Christ. (My biological sibling remains my biological sibling irrespective of our individual acceptance of parentage) My sibling still remains my sibling even if they live thousands of miles away. Which one of us would allow our friend or sibling to starve? Yet we do this every day. We a deterred from action because we accept the explanations. “It’s a structural problem” or there are too many individuals so what can I do” or I need my income to look after myself and dependents” or I’m powerless on my own.
I will go to bed tonight with a roof over my head and my child well fed. I am grateful for this and would not wish it otherwise. Yet at the same time there are countless children who also have parents who are suffering because they both have empty stomachs. This situation fills me with horror and frightens me. It frightens me not only because of the suffering of other’s but also I am diminished by my selfish inaction and we are collectively diminished by our collective inaction. We can belong to a church we can give to charities we can agonise over injustices but we still participate in perpetuating suffering. Capitalist constructs have allowed us to accumulate wealth, construct poverty and build churches. Capitalism may be a far greater Threat to Christianity then any direct opposition from Communism ever was!
For many, presenting the view of communism being a threat to Catholism and not mentioning the threat of capitalism is tantamount to accepting capitalism as a benign or beneficial system and ignoring the consequence arising out of unfettered capitalism. The Church could also be influential here by bearing witness to our need to construct systems which allow us to participate in the world without damaging it and ourselves.

“From a Christian point of view we are all God’s children, a brother or sister in Christ remains a brother or sister irrespective of whether either one of us believes in Christ. (My biological sibling remains my biological sibling irrespective of our individual acceptance of parentage) My sibling still remains my sibling even if they live thousands of miles away. Which one of us would allow our friend or sibling to starve? Yet we do this every day. We a deterred from action because we accept the explanations. “It’s a structural problem” or there are too many individuals so what can I do” or I need my income to look after myself and dependents” or I’m powerless on my own.
I will go to bed tonight with a roof over my head and my child well fed. I am grateful for this and would not wish it otherwise. Yet at the same time there are countless children who also have parents who are suffering because they both have empty stomachs. This situation fills me with horror and frightens me. It frightens me not only because of the suffering of other’s but also I am diminished by my selfish inaction and we are collectively diminished by our collective inaction. We can belong to a church we can give to charities we can agonise over injustices but we still participate in perpetuating suffering. Capitalist constructs have allowed us to accumulate wealth, construct poverty and build churches.”

There is a Great richness that we have forsaken over time because we did not hold secure to Christ’s example. A woman was the first evangelist, from the well, and from the tomb, when there was drought she brought water.

‘My job is not to convince you, but just to tell you’.
Be convinced 0-:0)

Mother Mary ultimately first served The Father in pure obedience and Mary Magdalene or of Bethany whatever your prejudice, too was the female who humbled herself in example of being a servant to the Lord. She sat at His feet and contemplated every word, bathed His feet with her tears, she anointed Him in oils in prophesy for she understood with great foresight when others were blind. He then washed His disciples feet as a servant in the same way of service – to leave us our example, to open our eyes.

By serving we lead many in the humblest of ways. In order to reach young-women (who are responsible in their own homes for the leadership of so many) to re-teach them the art of leading their own flocks in service (and not in a dominant way which just causes rebellion), to serve and inspire their children and husbands and ultimately serve the Lord, and in order to spiritually lead others living in the secular world, and women into vocations, we need a formal womens role and CHARISM within our Catholic Church in THE PARISH to renew Christ’s Mission. Not ordained as priest, but a formal example and presence of spiritual Grace in an active contemplative ministry. I Am Sure.

I have been looking up information about Cardinal Schonborn and am confused as he has been referred to as both conservative and progressive depending on the source of information. Surely he cannot be both?

Im not as smart as you all, nevertheless: communism is alive and well, and attempts to suck up to the culture always backfire. I say teach all things whatsoever He commanded and leave the results up to Him. BTW, the liturgical “reforms” are what started all this. Bring back the Latin Mass, and tell the World to “go to Hell”, as it were. I love your blog. Thanks

I think the cadinal has it right. there is something counter cultural baout the afith but the church also needs to speak to people where they are . newman left the Church of England but he continued to support the establishment as a leaven and christian voice in the decision making of society.
Chritianity in general, and Pope john Paul II in particular, was significant in the fall of communism. Materialism is also a threat of a diffrent kind as Niall say. chritians must witness here too. We also need to work with people of good willn where there is commonn ground.

About this blog

Looking across the landscape of contemporary culture - at the arts, science, religion, politics, philosophy; sorting through the jumble; seeing what stands out, what unsettles, what intrigues, what connects, what sheds light. Father Stephen Wang is a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Westminster, London. He is currently Senior University Chaplain, based at Newman House Catholic Chaplaincy. [Banner photo with kind permission of Matthew Powell]

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